Robotics News

NASA Tuesday issued a Request for Information (RFI) that will help agency officials better understand current plans in the U.S. commercial space industry for a robotic lunar landing capability. The RFI will assist NASA in assessing U.S. industry's interest in partnerships to develop a robotic lander that could enable commercial and agency missions.

Stanford mechanical engineering professor David Lentink and his students capture slow-motion video from the fastest wings in the bird world, with an eye toward building flying robots that take design cues from Mother Nature.

Fear of machines becoming smarter than humans is a standard part of popular culture. In films like iRobot and Terminator, humans are usurped. Throughout history we can trace stories about humankind overreaching through a desire to understand and copy ourselves, from Ancient Greek mythology to Milton's Paradise Lost and Shelley's Frankenstein. Today's Prometheans are supposedly scientists working on artificial intelligence, who run the risk of creating machines intelligent enough to supercede us.

Computer vision algorithms that enable Samsung's latest humanoid robot, Roboray, to build real-time 3D visual maps to move around more efficiently have been developed by researchers from the University of Bristol.

Thanks to advanced mathematical formulas known as algorithms, these systems, or agents, are now sufficiently intelligent to reason and to make responsible decisions - without adult supervision - in their own environments.

The bearer cables and tethers of bridges, elevators, and cable cars are exposed to high levels of stress. For this reason, their functional reliability must be monitored on a regular basis. A new robot recognizes fissures before they pose a danger.

Moving a robot from one place to another in an area with many obstacles and people moving around is not an easy task. Researchers have solved these problems by introducing a novel motion planning algorithm for mobile robots called Heuristic Arrival Time Field-biased (HeAT) Random Tree.

Researchers are using video game technology to remotely control cockroaches on autopilot, with a computer steering the cockroach through a controlled environment. The researchers are using the technology to track how roaches respond to the remote control, with the goal of developing ways that roaches on autopilot can be used to map dynamic environments - such as collapsed buildings.